Microsoft used Monotype, and Apple used Linotype. Their core fonts would have been more identical…except each computer giant licensed their fonts from different typesetting companies.
This would essentially standardize fonts and printer software across the two operating systems, which were respectively named TrueType and TrueImage. Microsoft’s Principle Software Engineering Manager, Greg Hitchcock, wrote extensively about Microsoft and Apple’s cross-license agreement for font technology back in 1989. We have Microsoft and Apple to thank for that. Stempel AG was later absorbed by the Linotype Company (this will be important later, stay with me). Stempel AG to manufacture Helvetica for traditional print and widespread reach. Haas type foundry eventually made a deal with German type foundry D. Max Miedinger designed the sans serif typeface to revitalize the company’s sans serif offerings with something more modern and international, since their current selection wasn’t doing so hot. Helvetica originated in Münchenstein, Switzerland, in 1957 as a commission for the Swiss Haas type foundry. According to the New York Public Library, monthly magazine Woman’s Home Companion was the first to adopt Times New Roman in 1941, and the Chicago Sun-Times started using it in 1953. The Times owned exclusive rights to their font for about a year, and then it slowly began to take off with American publishers a few years later.
He was given the challenge of rebranding London’s newspaper The Times with a fresh new font, and worked with draftsman Victor Lardent to create a serif font that was efficient, in order to maximize the amount of words that could fit in a line and on a page (very important for a newspaper), and readable, since print newspapers go pretty darn small with their font sizes. I hope this post helps someone who might bump into this font issue.Times New Roman was introduced to the world in 1932 by type designer Stanley Morison.
Here's Chrome now on Windows with Helvetica Neue removed: Any designers want to weigh-in the comments? I think the best solution (even though I'm deleting Helvetica Neue) would be to use an explicit Web Font in your stylesheets when possible rather than relying on a system font like Helvetica, even though they are the ultimate fallback. While it's obvious it would have major effects in retrospect, I had never realized that a machine-wide "common" font installation like this could mess up font rendering in my browser. The Stylesheet said "hey, gimme Helvetica" and the browser said "Cool, here's one." It's just not a Web Font, and while it's great for the giant sizes I needed for my talk, it's lousy for the web.īoth IE and Chrome were picking up that my system had a Helvetica available on the system and used it instead. The Helvetica Neue font that I installed for my presentation is very poorly hinted (if at all) at small sizes like the one's being used.
However, Helvetica is super common font that is mentioned in Stylesheets - often explicitly when CSS is designed on a Mac - and Arial on Windows usually steps in as the replacement on Windows. It's a lovely font and I think it worked nicely for my talk and looked great in PowerPoint. Well, what's changed is that I gave a talk at Xamarin Evolve this week, and in preparation, installed Helvetica Neue. What's going on here? What's changed? Doesn't it seem like "What's changed?" is the question we engineer-types ask the most?
I also happened to be at the Xamarin Evolve conference this week, so I mentioned it to the team down there, thinking they could pick another font.įast forward, and I'm on the plane, checking my email with Gmail Offline (the HTML5 offline version of Gmail) and noticed this. In fact, Jin Yang ( had to abandon Montserrat, our Web Font of choice, for a more conservative one whilst doing the redesign due to Google Chrome's poor font rendering on Windows. I emailed and mentally blamed Google Chrome as it's well know they've been having trouble with their Web Font rendering of late. The hinting is OK, but the font is somehow "wrong." Note the subtle"bites" that have been taken out of the g and s, but the c is OK.
A few days ago, I visited the website and noticed this.